Design Review Part 2: How and When? COVID EDITION

Within the past week, a lot of new challenges have arisen, all of which are caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The most pressing changes, in terms of the project, have been the closure of many school facilities, including the ITLL and Idea Forge. These facilities were the number one way, and for some the only way, that students were going to be able to manufacture their project pieces. Because of this, we’ve all had to make some drastic changes, look within ourselves for new directions, and just try to keep pushing through the ever changing landscape of CU in crisis.

As for my project in particular, I feel more and more sure that I can achieve a scaled back version of my original vision. Below, I will outline what those changes are, and how I hope to achieve them with my limited resources.

First, I will most likely be ditching the electrical components for my project. Although I would have liked to create something automated, I know that I am very unlikely to accomplish this goal without the assistance of those at the ITLL and it’s electronic shop. Instead, I will be shifting to creating a project with a manual motion, such as a crank or lever. This brings the project back within the realm of possibility, while still allowing me to achieve something similar to my original idea.

The lack of electronics will also get rid of my need for an entire box for the base of my project. Instead, I can simply use one piece of material to act as a sturdy base. Since I will only be using one piece of material, this allows me to open up my materials options to once again include wood. Wood is easier to come by and easier to manipulate with the tools I have access to, which makes me feel confident in my abilities to create what I want.

From there, the trinket should stay the same in basic form. It probably won’t be laser cut, but there are a number of other mediums that I can use in order to create something fandom related. Small blocks of wood that are painted are the first that come to mind, but other ideas include pieces of paper that have fandom symbols printed on them, or maybe even hand drawings done (very poorly) by yours truly.

I would still like to use the merry-go-round mechanism for making the trinket(s) move. Since I will be moving to a manual mechanism, I feel like this will be much easier to make. In particular, this is because I will be moving the mechanism from the bottom of the form to the top of the form. This alleviates my worries about balancing, since the trinkets will be hanging down from the arms, and gravity will keep them in place.

COVID-19 is causing a lot of worry and anxiety, and is causing a crap ton of bumps in the road as we approach the end of the semester. But with some out of the box thinking, and reaching out to others for ideas and support, we can still make some awesome projects that we can be proud of. So stay positive and wash your hands, and I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

Presentation (also linked in Design Review Part 1 post)